British Union of Fascists

1934

Intro

Sir Oswald Mosley was founder of the British Union of Fascists, a party notorious for its support of Hitler and for its anti-Semitic propaganda. In order to be deliberately provocative, rallies and demonstrations were often held in Jewish areas of London. In this rare recording, Mosley addresses 12,000 supporters of his British Union of Fascists at London's Olympia on 7th June 1934. The meeting was disrupted by opponents of the fascists, including Lou Kenton who here recalls how he and others were brutally treated by uniformed ‘Blackshirts’. The Olympia meeting marked a turning point for the British fascist movement, attracting a torrent of unfavourable publicity from which it never recovered.

This photograph shows Oswald Mosley at a Fascist rally in East London on 4 October 1936. Copyright Getty Images